from co sleeping to cot

[rr16]

can anyone please tell me how to go about getting ds to sleep in his cot after months of co sleeping?

when I try he screams the house down...

any advice really appreciated xXx

I've just managed to get him used to going to sleep on his own after bf'ing to sleep for so long. He's now 12 mo and weaned.

I'm a bit fed up having a wriggly boy in bed in between dh and I all night...

I tried CC and it didn't work with my child unfortunately. I don't mind letting him cry but I draw the line at him becoming distraught.

Certainly didn't realise that not leaving him to cry for some peole means spoiling him!!!!

we have exact.y the same problem! I love my DS but he is very wriggly. we have the cot sidecar arrangement, fixed to our bed. with mattresses level, but he still wakes and needs a snuggle. I dont believe he is being spoiled!
the no cry sleep solution by elizabeth pantley has some practical ideas that could help you, it is a slow approach but like you the crying approach was a non option! good luck

I co-slept with my dd now 15months from birth pretty much- she would never sleep in a cot as always got stuck in the bars and i found it easier to co-sleep. I only breastfed for 3mths and then was ff and used to fall asleep on the bottle. I decided i wanted my evenings back!!! I did CC for 3 days and it worked!

It was awful and i cried for the first 2 nights but now she has bath, milk (in a beaker- she started to refuse bottles), story, into sleeping bag and then put her down awake and she sleeps all night in her cot.
The 1st night it took 30 mins- me going in every 5 mins, 2nd night was 20 mins and the 3rd night she had stopped by the time i got halfway down the stairs. It is hard and i think i miss her more than she does me!! But having 'me time' on an evening is fab!

I have an idea which may help.

Follow your bed time routine to the T. It will make your LO feel safe and in control as they know what is happening.

Say good night. Give kisses. Lay LO down.

Sit down on the floor next to the cot. Put one hand one to your LO gently patting in a nice calming rhythm. Whilst saying shhh. To calm the crying. If there is no crying, reduce the shhh.

Give no eye contact. Sounds mean I know, but eye contact is a form of communication and your LO will do anything to pull your heart strings and get you to stop.

If LO becomes distressed. Pick him up. Calm him. Still no eye contact or talking etc. Lay him down. Night night. Love you. Start again.

Once your LO gets used to this you can stop the shhh. Turn the pat to just a still hand. And then move your hand away. Yourself away. And then they are self settling :)

If they wake in the night. Follow the same thing.

HTH

Hi - my daughter wouldn't sleep alone either. We ended up with her in a cot with one side removed wedged against our bed at the same level ad our matress. I'd let her fall asleep and then roll her into her cot, once she got used to sleeping in the cot, she'd wake and put herself back to sleep again. Then we'd put her down just in her cot, eventually we moved her cot to the foot of the bed, then out of the room. my husband sits at the foot of the bed when we put her down. Next stage is for him to sit closer to the door. This has taken us months due to illnesses, laziness and her stubborness, but it has worked and with minimal crying. We did try cc for two weeks early on but it didn't work - I followed it to the letter but she just wouldn't stop crying, she went HOURS and often until she threw up so I'd have to go and change the bedding. It just wasn't for us.
Our method is slow but it's paid off for us, tbh go with what's comfortable, you need to have sleep too ( which is the main reason we coslept with her in the first place). Good luck!!

OP - how did you manage to get your LO to settle without feeding when co-sleeping?

Co-slept full time with my DS until recently, but I could only get him to sleep by feeding and he wanted to be latched on most of the night! I would have liked to carry on co-sleeping if that hadn't happened.

We moved our DS to cot 2 weeks ago and shush patted him to sleep (a bit like jessieb's post). There was a lot of crying the first night, not so much after that. BUT he wakes A LOT still, he can't self settle and rather than feeding now needs the shush pat to get to sleep. He is 7.5 months.

Hi everyone and thanks for your advice.

RaisingMrC to answer your question...

DS has always fed to sleep so I decided to express and bottle feed him so I could see when he was falling asleep and keep him awake-ish until he'd finished his feed and then put him down next to me in bed and wait for him to drop off alone. When he gets up I place him back down everytime until he goes off to sleep (average time now 10 mins).

I thought doing this would help with the night wakings, a step in the right direction towards the elusive self settling that all babies should do if they are to sleep through but it only works for getting him off to sleep and maybe when he wakes a few hours after dropping off, otherwise he's got a bottle or boob in his mouth for the rest of the night.